Entering the Enchanted World of Fairy Tales!

When students arrived this morning, they stepped into a Land of Stories!

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Jumping right into our fairy tale unit, we began to prepare for our Fairy Tale Wax Museum which will be held on April 8th! We will spend the next several weeks exploring different fairy tales so we can decide on which fairy tale characters we'd like to be for the wax museum. Forms will be coming home today with more information about our unit. On the form, students will be asked to list their top three character choices for the wax museum. It is my hope that every child will get one of their top choices! These choices must be returned by Thursday, March 3rd. Students will be notified about which character they will portray by Friday so they have plenty of time to prepare at home and in class for our big day!

Need some inspiration? Here is a list of classic fairy tales your child might like to explore:

Aladdin 

Alice in Wonderland 

Beauty and the Beast 

Chicken Little 

Cinderella 

Goldilocks and the Three Bears 

Hansel and Gretel 

Jack and the Beanstalk 

Little Red Riding Hood 

Peter Pan 

Pinocchio 

Rapunzel 

Rip Van Winkle 

Rumpelstiltskin 

Shrek 

Sleeping Beauty 

Snow White 

The Boy Who Cried Wolf 

The Elves and the Shoemaker 

The Emperor’s New Clothes 

The Frog Prince 

The Gingerbread Man 

The Little Mermaid 

The Little Red Hen 

The Princess and the Pea 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff 

The Three Little Pigs 

The Ugly Duckling 

Thumbelina 

Tom Thumb

While almost all of these tales are available in our classroom, there are also lots of different versions of these stories in our school library as well as the Wiggin Memorial Library. Students are more than welcome to choose ANY major character from any fairy tale they have read before. Some may end up being different characters from the same fairy tale, so it is important for us to know which character they would like to be from the story. 

Happy Reading!

Read Across America Week!!

What a fun, fantastical week we had!!

 

 

 

    SMS left for vacation in style after celebrating Read Across America Week! I think it's safe to say, our Owl class loves reading just as much as Dr. Seuss himself!!

    On Monday, our week kicked off with a special reading by Principal Lowe and Miss Bonkers! We enjoyed hearing the story Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! and heard many familiar names throughout the story! 

Hey! Principal Lowe looks awfully familiar....

As for our dress up celebrations, we started off with Fox in Socks Day! After reading the tongue-twisting story, students spent the morning showing off their own fun socks!

On Tuesday, we celebrated Cat in the Hat Day by hearing the classic story and sporting our favorite (or wackiest!) hats.

Hearing Justin Bieber read us Dr. Seuss' classic tale.

While wearing our own hats was fun, we paid tribute to the iconic Cat's hat, by creating our own red and white hats in preparation to wear on Friday for our "Drop Everything and Read" Celebration.

          On Wednesday, kids came into the class and found things were quite wacky! 

    First, we read the lesser known Dr. Seuss book (the use of his Theo LeSieg pen name threw us off!)Wacky Wednesday. Then, they set off to locate all the wacky things they found around the classroom---boy were there some strange things they came across!

Thursday was Theodore Geisel Day (Dr. Seuss' real name!) and students came to school dressed as a favorite book character! We saw character favorites such as Pinkalicious, Georgia the Gingerbread Fairy, Goldilocks, and Piggie! The fun just never stops!

Before lunch, a character from Strega Nona appeared. Big Anthony came to read us his story. Big Anthony had trouble paying attention which caused him an awful lot of trouble growing up and his story was a fun one to hear!

While we were sad to see it end, we ended our great week with a wonderful, curl up and read day. Sporting their PJs, students snuggled up with pillows and stuffed animal friends for a day full of reading. 

Thank you Dr. Seuss for all of your wonderful stories! You have instilled a love for reading in each and everyone of us!!

Next Week: SMS Celebrates Read Across America!

 

 Starting on Monday, we will be celebrating Read Across America Week! SMS will honor Dr. Seuss and his love of reading by dedicating each day of the week to a different Dr. Seuss theme. Students (and teachers!) are encouraged to dress up as they participate in many literacy activities throughout the week. It's going to be great! Check out the theme schedule below:

Monday, 2/15-Fox in Socks Day: wear crazy socks and show them off!

Tuesday, 2/16-Cat in the Hat Day: wear your favorite hat!

Wednesday, 2/17-Wacky Wednesday: wear mismatch clothing!

Thursday, 2/18-Theodore Geisel Day: dress up as your favorite book character!

Friday, 2/19-Curl Up and Read Day: wear PJs and bring a pillow/stuffed animal to curl up for our school-wide Drop Everything and Read Event!

Another part of our celebration will be a book swap! Students are encouraged to bring in gently used books that they've already read or no longer read to swap for a "new" book! The swap will happen in our classroom on Thursday, February 18th. Any books that are not chosen in the swap will be donated to a local charity.

Have a great week & happy reading!!

Celebrations Galore! 2H Celebrates The 100th Day and Valentine's Day!

 Last week gave us so many reasons to celebrate here in 2H! After making it through the season with only two snow days this year, our 100th day of school came quickly!! Wednesday, Feb. 10th, marked our 100th day together as a second grade class. It's hard to believe we have less than eighty days left together. As I always tell our class, time sure flies when you're having fun!

     Students did a nice job completing their 100 days homework assignment---thank you for your help! It was fun to put all of our letters together and proudly proclaim:

!

When students arrived at school, they had to crawl through the number 100 in order to make it "official!"

 Our morning meeting activity had us seeing just how many things we could do in 100 seconds (which your mathematicians quickly discovered was 1 minute 40 seconds!) We set the timer and we were off!

Hopping on one foot! 

Writing our name---some of us had much longerrrrr names than others!

Sitting and standing!

Later in the day, as a fun 100th day challenge, the owls worked together to complete some collaborative "100 Post-it Posters!" After calculating the math (including Mrs. Pitcher and myself, each person would need to add 5 post-its to each poster in order to reach 100), we set off in coming up with 100 places we'd like to travel and 100 things to do before we're 100 years old! After stretching our thinking, we got the job done! Everyone had a blast reading all of the post-its when we were through!

As if the 100th day excitement wasn't enough for one week, the all time highlight was definitely our celebration of Valentine's Day. We were reminded that Valentine's Day is about being with the people you love and showing kindness to others, and we certainly had a great day together!

Starting our day with a two-part heart greeting <3

Before lunch, we enjoyed some crafty (& delicious) writing! Using conversation hearts, writers had to fit the words on the candies into sentence to make a letter! While this proved to be pretty tricky, the final pieces came out great (& of course everyone enjoyed eating some of the leftovers!!).

 While the Owls were at lunch, it was time to setup for our celebration! Their adorable Owl collection bags were put out and delicious treats took over our back table. When I picked them up from lunch, it was time to let the celebration begin!

Thank you to all the families who donated provisions for our party! We couldn't have done it without you!!

Happy faces all around! A huge thank you for your help in sending in valentines. Each child had a chance to exchange these nice gifts with their friends. What a treat!!

Wising you and your family a very happy, loving Valentine's Day!